


first meetings

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, multiple AUs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 06:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15858273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: In canon, Jonas went to Nomi first, then to Will. But what if Nomi wasn't his first option? What if he went to another cluster member first instead?





	first meetings

In one world, Jonas goes to Nomi first. It is a logical option. She’s the nearest to his location at the time, and besides, from what little research he’s done she seems both level-headed and open-minded, which for this cluster is more rare than he’d like. He hopes to have a revelatory conversation and use her as his in. Instead, he makes her faint, gets her almost lobotomized, goes running to probably the worst option in the cluster (Will Gorsky is a good man but he’s also a policeman and follows his fucking orders) and gets himself arrested.

It seemed logical, but in retrospect, it may not have been the best choice.

 

* * *

 

In another world he makes the worst choice. It doesn’t turn out as bad as it might.

He goes to Will Gorsky quick, before BPO has time to put the Chicago police on alert. He tells Will he knew Angelica, he can explain about Angelica, can explain everything. Will, always the detective, listens. He starts trying to gather facts from the rest of the cluster. Names, locations, details of their lives. Jonas stays in his apartment and tries to keep under the radar and together they talk about how they will hide themselves from BPO, how they will all survive.

When Jonas becomes a wanted man, it’s not a comfortable evening. Will comes home and puts a gun to Jonas’ forehead and says, “Tell me you’re not what they say they are. A terrorist.”

“You know me, Will.”

“I know you knew Angelica and you’re a sensate and that’s all. That’s not that much, Jonas. Why should I trust you? A sensate could still be a criminal.”

Jonas wants to laugh and tell Will that by the time they’re through, everyone in the cluster will likely be a criminal. It will be necessary for survival. But he keeps a steady face and says again, “You know me, Will.”

And Will does, so he lowers the gun.

 

* * *

 

Capheus is not a convenient option, living in a small town in a dangerous part of Kenya, but there is a world where Jonas chooses him nonetheless. He sits down in Capheus’ bus and drives with him and Jela, never getting off until evening comes and Capheus parks for the night. When Capheus leaves, Jonas follows, trailing him through the streets.

Of course Capheus is street savvy enough to notice him.

He stops in a corner between two stores. Turns around. “Do you have business with me, sir?”

His whole body is tense.

Jonas says, “Yes. There are things we have to talk about, Capheus Onyango.”

Capheus tilts his head. “You know me, but I don’t know you.”

“You don’t know me,” Jonas says, “but you know Angelica. Your mother.”

“My mother is not named Angelica.”

“But you still know who I mean. Your second mother.” Jonas taps the side of his head. “The one who birthed your bond.”

Capheus is silent, and his eyes are distrustful. He purses his lips.

“You have been having headaches, feeling disoriented. You have been speaking in tongues you do not know, dreaming of foreign places. And you have had visions of others, like you and not like you. You feel a kinship with them.” Jonas reaches out his hand. “You have a kinship with me too. It is only more distant.”

He wants Capheus to shake his hand, but Capheus only narrows his eyes and said, “We can talk. But don’t follow me again.”

“Noted.”

He spins his story of clusters and medical organizations and foreign relatives. Capheus listens attentively, and he shakes his head. “So I am a different type of organism, you say. I am not a human.”

“No. You are more than human.”

“I was born of a human mother.”

“As are we all. But we become more.”

Capheus stares at his hands. He lets out a brief laugh. “I used to say I wanted to be a zebra. It seems I have now changed my stripes.”

“What you are is good,” Jonas says. “But it may put you in danger. You and the ones you love.”

“Then I will have to protect them. You will help me?”

“Of course.” This man is Angelica’s son. How could he not?

At last they shake hands, and Jonas feels that the bond between them will be strong. They have yet to make many connections—though Capheus informs Jonas that he has dreamed in particular of a Korean businesswoman, so perhaps there’s a bond forming there—but he is confident they will make headway soon. Though even between Capheus and Jonas, trust is not grown instantly. Capheus does not let Jonas follow him home, telling him to meet him at the bus or telepathically visit if he has more to say. Jonas doesn’t tell Capheus he can easily find where he lives and allows him the illusion of caution. For a couple days he backs off, only visiting Capheus once or twice, telepathically catching a ride in his bus and simply allowing the man to become accustomed to his presence.

Soon the bond with the Korean woman becomes relevant. When a gang attacks Capheus’ bus, all Jonas can do is telepathically sit on the sidelines and wait. But the Korean woman can do more.

“Van Damme!” Capheus gasps when it is over.

“We do need her real name though,” Jonas points out.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it. That is the least of our problems, is it not? I have the medicine back…”

“I could have leant you the money for medicine,” Jonas says. He offered at the time, too.

Capheus sends him a look. Still wary. He sighs. “Well, that was not necessary, was it?”

“You should let me help you,” Jonas says.

And Capheus does let Jonas help him sometimes. A little. But he trusts the Korean woman more, his cluster more. It’s only right, but Jonas does feel sad at the slight distance between them.

 

* * *

 

In the world where Jonas visits Kala first, he finds her less open-minded than he had expected. He’s spiritual himself and had expected her religion would make her more open to things supernatural and unexpected, but she refuses to believe him the first two times they talk, claiming alternately that he is “another demon” (she does not specify what other demon she knows) or that he is out of his mind. When she finally listens, though, she listens carefully, absorbing every word. And when he is done she takes out a notebook and says, “I have some questions.”

Kala is a scientist, and she wants to understand what being a sensate means. Jonas respects her curiosity, but he holds back. Curiosity and scientific exploration led to the atrocities of Whispers. Led to Angelica’s death.

Later, months later, she comes to him with another kind of question. “You said you and Angelica were in love?”

“Yes,” he says. “Very.”

“Is it common, for cluster members to fall in love?”

He shrugs. “We never knew enough sensates to qualify what was common.”

“How did it feel,” she asks, “being in love with her?”

He hopes for her sake she is asking because of Rajan. Her marriage preparations have been in process the whole time he’s been here. But he doesn’t question her and instead tells her about Angelica, and allows memories to carry him away.

 

* * *

 

Riley asks him a similar question, in a world where he goes to her first. “You say you were in love with Angelica?”

“Yes.”

“So love within a cluster is not…pathological?”

His lips tighten. “Who have you been talking to?”

But that is not where their relationship starts, not even close. It starts with him finding her high on the streets and paying for a hotel room for the night. She wakes up scared, not sure if they had sex, if he raped her, if he kidnapped her to bring her here, if he’s working for the gangster whose money she stole. He tells her he is a friend of Angelica’s and oddly, that is enough to calm her down. She is one of the members most affected by Angelica’s death. She nods sadly when he calls Angelica her mother.

(She won’t tell him that she too was a mother until much later.)

He can’t deal with the gangsters after her. They discuss all sorts of locations. They think about visiting other cluster members. At the very least, he warns her, no Iceland. Iceland is BPO headquarters and they cannot be found by BPO.

“I miss my father,” she tells him.

“I know.”

“I’d risk it.” Her eyes are pleading. The eyes of the suicidal.

He takes her hand. “BPO would lobotomize you if they found you,” he says calmly. “They would want to use your empty shell of a body. But I have information they want. They would keep me alive, lucid, as long as I could be of use to them. It could be a long time. And they would torture me every day of it. Whispers has been waiting to catch me. He would enjoy it.”

“I could go alone,” she begs.

“No. I can’t leave you alone.”

She cries. He rubs her back until she calms down.

She is a good bad girl, really. Her attraction to Will Gorski, though. He thinks that will be trouble. She looks at him nervously sometimes when she has been visiting Will. Will is a cop, and has doubtless heard that Jonas is a terrorist. He worries Will will poison Riley against him.

But he can’t bring himself to warn her away. Because love within a cluster is not pathological. It is beautiful. He cannot have it himself anymore, but Riley can, and if it’s a mistake it’s one he has to let her make.

 

* * *

 

There is a world where Jonas meets Lito first. He gets an apartment near Lito’s, and tries to get Lito to understand that this sensate business is serious. Lito agrees that it is serious but he thinks he has it handled, though he appreciates Jonas’ advice. He is more worried about his career and personal drama. Sometimes they meet up for coffee or a drink and Lito always spends the whole time ranting about his own problems. Jonas does try to help but what he really wants is to network the cluster, help it flourish, and Lito, a busy man, is not all that interested in that. He sees his cluster as just another oddity of his already eccentric lifestyle. If anything, Jonas interests him more than the cluster does.

He snorts over coffee sometimes. “If Hernando saw us he would be jealous. I never take him anywhere nice.”

“…this is not a date,” Jonas says.

“Of course not.”

Jonas should not be interested in Lito that way. Lito should be like a son to him—he’s Angelica’s son, after all. But he’s smolderingly hot and reminds Jonas of how he experimented back in the day, before he met Angelica, and afterwards, sometimes even with Angelica. He’d never call himself gay, but he’d probably call himself pan if he weren’t busy calling himself an eternally single pseudo-widower.

Lito calls him nothing, not gay or straight or anything, doesn’t talk about the way they glance at each other sometimes. But when he breaks up with Hernando, Jonas finds himself summoned telepathically to his apartment.

“Hernando has left me,” he says.

Jonas says, “Do you want to get a drink?”

“No,” Lito says. “I want…”

He kisses Jonas, fast and hard and sloppy. There’s no conviction behind the kiss, just frustration. Jonas pushes him away. “You don’t want this. You’re upset about Hernando.”

“Fuck you.”

“No. Not tonight. But we can get a drink if you want.”

“I don’t deserve a drink,” Lito says. “I am a damn coward.” He turns away and picks up his cellphone, and Jonas takes that as permission to leave.

 

* * *

 

Lito is not very helpful to Jonas’ quest to unite the cluster, but Wolfgang and Sun are worse.

Wolfgang sees he has a tail. Doesn’t recognize who it is, but knows it’s no one good. He’s upset enough people lately. He shoots before asking questions. He’s even worse than Will.

Sun, on the other hand, would love to help. She even buys the whole sensate deal—she’s had enough odd visions lately, and she’s fairly open-minded. But, she says, she’s going to be busy.

“I know you run a company,” Jonas says, “but this is important. BPO is a serious threat. We have to organize.”

“I will be busy,” Sun says. “I’m sorry. Perhaps one of the others can help.” She bows slightly. “I was glad to meet you.”

Two days later she gets herself arrested. Jonas visits her in jail, mentally. Physically, he makes his way back to the United States. There are other cluster members to visit, and he can’t do anything for her just now.

 

* * *

 

There may be a world where Jonas visits Nomi first and doesn’t get her hurt and himself arrested. A world where he perches on a couch next to her and Amanita, watching her work magic on computers. In this world they build the strongest network of all. They take down BPO. They are a force to be reckoned with.

But then, Angelica’s cluster is a force to be reckoned with in any universe. It is only a question of whether Jonas may join them or not.

In the world where he is not, where he meets Nomi and then meets Will and then meets Whispers, he comforts himself that one way or another, at least he met them. He tried. He did his duty as Angelica’s partner, did his best by her cluster. That is all one can really ask of him.

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't a very coherent piece but basically I wonder what would have happened if Jonas had gotten to meet the Cluster instead of being immediately arrested. Didn't go very far with it but I imagine the changes would be huge.  
> Comments would be much appreciated :) or come see me on tumblr at convenientalias.


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